Untitled
by Echo1317
Summary: Drabble just because I felt like writing. Clary/Jace, not very good. Character death.


A million things happened in the second it took to cross thre street. Some people were born, some people died. Families sat down to eat, some remembered their last meals. Some people laughed and some people wept. For the most part, it all made sense. It was all normal, and that was fine by the standards of the mundanes who were experiencing it first hand. But there was one thing that happened that Jace Wayland would never understand.

Later, as Jace reflected over the months that would follow that day, they seemed like the most unkind of dreams. It tore at him and made him weak to think how close he had come to happiness. The real, undeniable kind of happiness that no one ever got; the kind that people would kill for. He was _right_ _there_. He was so damn close that he could taste the sweetness of it on his tongue. Nothing would ever make him that happy again, and he knew it.

The Institute became a lonely place. No one wanted to really look at him, to see the hurt that would reflect in his bloodshot eyes. They were almost afraid of him, of what might happen if they said something wrong. They avoided him like he was the Black Plague, or some of his pain might rub off on them. He grew tired of being a burden to them. So, Jace left the Institute, never intending to go back.

Alec was never the same after that day, either. He hated himself because of how it made him feel. THe hadn't hated her, but he hadn't loved her, so why was he still so upset? After a while, he left the Institute, too. He traveled like crazy, never stopping in one place for long. Isabelle would get his postcards and wince at how fast he was moving. She almost felt like he was trying to run away from some unseen force that just kept following him. In truth, he was running away, from the ghost of his past and everything he was. He never wanted to see the person he had been again.

A few months after Alec moved away, Isabelle did as well. She found a small, two-story house in a tiny town outside of Seattle, so that she could be as far away from New York as possible without leaving the country. Why she didn't go to Idris, she wasn't quite sure. Maybe, she thought, she was trying to hold on to just a fraction of the past, even if it was just that small.

Simon convinced his mother (with the help of Magnus Bane) that moving to Arizona of all places would be a good idea. A fresh start, he called it, even though he knew it probably wouldn't do any good for him. The kind of hurt he felt was one that never really left you. No matter how hard he could try to forget, he never would. Not even in a hundred years would he be able to get her face out of his head.

Overall , the Institute was left to rot. He once bold and proud interior became dusty and depressing, with only a few stray shadowhunters wandering her barren halls every now and then. Eventually, Mayres Lightwood handed over the duty of caring for the Institute to Jocelyn Fray-ahem, Fairchild, who needed as much distraction from her own thoughts as she could get. Jocelyn severed all her ties with Lucian Greymark, content to build yet another new identity for herself.

With her, so went the Institute, and the ties that bound the people who once lived there. She took with her the lives of her friends and family, and their hope for the regeneration of their futures. She had touched them in ways that even they themselves had not realized.

Jace never quite stopped loving her- but he never forgave her, either. She had cruelly taken herself away from him, just when he believed that she would never leave him. He thought of her constantly; sometimes fondly and sometimes with hatred. Twice a year he went to Idris to visit her, but she never had anything to say to him. Even as he begged and pleaded with her, as he cried and screamed and shook, she seemed to take no notice of him.

"Why did you do this to us, Clary?" He whispered one night, just loud enough so that maybe she would hear him, "Why did you do this to me?"

Clary still gave no answer, but by now he didn't expect her to. Jace fell to his knees, hardly noticing the hurt of the hard ground.

"It's not fair!" He shouted suddenly, looking up at the abnormally cloudy sky, "After everything we survived, how could you just go like that? I told you not to go! I told you that you wouldn't need your wallet when we were just walking down the street! I told you that you that I would pay for the movie, and we would go back to the Institute and watch it on the stupid DVD thing you made me get! I told you to wait for me before you crossed the street!"

Rain fell quietly from the sky, mingling with the tears on his face. If she had just waited that extra minute, waited for him, maybe none of this would've happened. Maybe they would be happy right now; happy and together, like it was supposed to have been.

"It's so stupid," Jace said, "That even after you defeated Valentine, you died because you were hit by a car."

* * *

This is really crappy, and I don't like it all that much, but I was bored out of my mind and I had to write_ something._ Yeah, it's probably not a good sign that it's only the first day of vacation and I'm already bored. Hmmm...

Review please!


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